2017 ACE Squadron Briefing 13

Dear civilians,

Please pay attention and stop messing about, will ya? Man, do briefing rooms get noisy or what?

Welcome to Squadron Briefing no. 13. Yes – no. 13. Let’s defy conventions and maybe it will bring us some more luck?

Nanuk 903
This week, the postman made us very happy with 16 olive Nanuk 903 watch cases. HQ won’t show you the inside, as it must be a surprise for you. But how about these looks, can’t beat them!

Buckles/pins
Operative Eddy sent HQ a Whatsapp with this image, revealing the buckles will be ready soon:

The pins are not bent, as most watch brands do, but the pins are forged from a single block of titanium. The hole where the pushpin comes, is therefore drilled. Neat or what?! Anyway: Eddy and yours met in a famous hamburger joint on a non-diclosed location last night, to discuss your titanium buckles over a cold beverage. The following items were on the table…

Since the prototype buckle (right) from last year’s ACE prototype model needed a visual and quality upgrade, we developed a totally new buckle (middle) this winter. Problem was, it didn’t fit like it should because it didn’t have enough curvature. That’s why Eddy’s came up with buckle 2.0 (left) and he nailed it, ‘caus they fit like a glove. The curvature of this iteration is perfect. We tested it with a 3.2 mm thick handmade leather strap that was made by Remie Beijer of 7T2Straps.com to sport the SUBDELTA Periscope.

Eddy will have the buckles sanded and polished in the coming couple of weeks, after which they’ll be done. We simply can’t wait. Thanks Eddy!

Remie will receive one of these buckles soon, so he can make those beautiful olive leather straps for you. Why does he need a buckle anyway, you might ask? Well, he needs the pin to determine the size of the holes in the leather and the exact width in tenths of a mm so he can make the strap fit pefectly. Remie will get cracking soon, of which you’ll receive images in abundance.

Cases/casebacks
The cases and casebacks will be made right after the buckles are completed, so expect them somewhere by the beginning of May. We’re really looking forward to those too, Eddy.

Dials/hands
The sandwiched dials and hands with Swiss Super-LumiNova BGW9 are made elsewhere, not in-house and this party needs a tad more time to make them absolutely perfect for you. We expect them to surface by the end of May, so André can assemble the Ace watches right after that. Of course we have a supplier’s snapshot of them and once they surface, we’ll make better images. Left: regular, black version (16 pcs sold out), right: blue version (Blue Ace, production starts soon, all 30 pcs  are ready for pre-order).

Nothing more to share with you at this point, so have a good one and be safe!

Over & out

HQ

2017 ACE Squadron Briefing 11

Hello to all civilians!

Just wanted to let you know HQ’s got something up its sleeve for all 2017 ACE buyers. On the back (view) side of their movements, there are two larger brushed wheels. Whenever they hand-wind their engines to tackle perilous missions and to track time, both of them move. They operate a large spring inside the belly of the movements, which gradually releases the tension over time, ensuring a smooth and even power distribution.

Stock standard, they look like this:

HQ felt the future owners needed a spiced-up version of this otherwise rather boring wheel… So in the actual watches, they will look like this:

Please note this is a blow-up of the prototype, still revealing even the slightest imperfection. Awesome, right? Dutch engraving artist called “Ernst” of Sanders Engraver (Instagram: sandersengraver) works on all of them – one at a time, taking his time. His girlfriend Kim designed these especially for SUBDELTA. Both of them for US presidents, please 😉

Also please note the blued screw will sit in the middle of this wheel, hiding its untreated center.

Have a good one!

Over & out

Headquarters

2017 ACE Squadron Briefing 10

Good day to all civilians,

The tubes have just arrived @ HQ! Tubes are essential to any watch for a number of reasons:

• to avoid dust and moisture penetrating the case and compromising the movement’s integrety and functions
• to strengthen the connection between the winding stem and the crown
• to look awesome

Other brands choose to make them out of plain stainless steel. Nothing wrong with that at all. We however choose to make them out of grade 5 titanium, just as we make all the hardware for the 2017 ACE out of this material. Just because we can, even though they’re much harder to manufacture and therefore much more expensive.

Everytime the future owners pull out their crowns, they see a magnificent titanium tube and know: no corners were cut there!

All other mission-critical intel was shared with the buyers only, as always.

Have a good one!

Over & out

Headquarters

2017 ACE Squadron Briefing 02

To all civilians,

Welcome to Squadron Briefing 02! Here’s an update on the procurement and production of the 2017 SUBDELTA ACE. Pay attention please.

Movement
HQ ordered the movements that will power the ACE watches in due time. This is an awesome movement which was extremely hard to come by. We litterally searched for months and it appeared only a couple of Swiss companies can modify these movements to perfection. One of them is our supplier. Yes!

General information on how a mechanical watch works is to be found here. The Swiss supplier of the movements sent HQ a morse message, containing al lot of technical details. For those of you who are relatively new to mechanical watch movements, HQ has googled some basic explanations. These can be found by clicking on the various hyperlinks. Here goes.

• Base movement: ETA / UNITAS 6497 (1950s pocket watch basis)
• Dimensions: 16.5″ / about 37 mm. Also called 16.5 “lignes” > this is one of the largest mechanical movements around with its roots in large pocket watches
• Bridge decoration: Côtes de Genève
• Screws: blue PVD polished and anchor bridge hardened flame blued steel (this is done for aesthetical reasons and all can be seen through your sapphire casebacks)
• Second stop: hack feature (the seconds hand stops when you pull out the crown and lets you adjust the time of your ACE to the exact second)
• Shock protection: Incabloc (needed to withstand daily abuse)
• Spiral: 1st quality a.k.a. “top”
• Anchor wheel: polished (looks good;-)
• Balance wheel: Glucydur, screw pin balance
• Regulating: Swan neck (very exclusive method of fine-regulating a movement)
• Number of jewels: 18
• Frequency: 18,000 beats per hour (the central seconds hands ticks 5 times per second, so 1 tick every 0.2 seconds) > this is what you hear when your ear is close to a mechanical watch
• Power reserve: 45-56 hours when fully wound by hand (approximately a 10-40% increase compared to a factory ETA 6497 movement without these improvements!)
• Accuracy match: within COSC certification requirements (less than +/- 5 seconds per day). Your watchmaker André will provide a print-out of each individual watch showing the actual accuracy.
• Adjusted in: 3 positions (factory) followed by 6 positions (by your watchmaker André) and we will prove this in a document for each individual watch

Man, that was a lot to take in! Thanks for your attention, you rock! Some of you need to wake up again though ;P

Case
Moving on with some intel on the stainless steel prototype case that project leader Eddy has had made. The production cases will be milled out of grade 5 titanium (the very best available), where Eddy uses a stainless steel version for trying out various stuff. This is cheaper and easier to modify (softer). Thanks so much, Eddy! Thanks to you we will have fantastically machined titanium cases!

First you see the yet-untreated case, straight from the mill. Just look at the way the bevels of the lugs start as tiny lines and become wider as they curve down to the drilled lugholes. The bevel almost touches – but doesn’t quite touch – the drilled lugholes, an improvement compared to the prototype titanium case that has travelled the world to meet future buyers (and has returned to HQ last week!).

Next stap: beadblasting to create that military, matte look (less shiny). This is how that looks like on that stainless steel case:

The orange arrow indicates the position of the bevels on the lugs, which will be hand-polished to shine like a mirror. This will look totally awesome and adds a very nice detail to the otherwise matte case. Just like on the prototype.

That’s it folks. Thanks for your time and have a great week-end.

Remember: there’s still one extra ACE that needs a Commander. Should you know anybody in your network, you can have him/her contact HQ. Thanks in advance!

Over & out

HQ

2017 ACE briefing 01: Squadron formation

Hello civilians,

HQ has stopped taking orders for the 2017 ACE. This means the Squadron can now be formed. All Commanders are asked to introduce themselves, and are also asked to indicate which build numbers, engravings, strap sizes and initials they’d like.

The Commanders come from lots of places, like Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the US of A. To name a few.

Great news, for HQ will reveal some of this intel to you later this week! You then get a glimpse of what rockstars are part of the ACE Squadron.

Over & out

HQ